Taliban: What are the similarities and differences between the movement and the Islamic State?

Videos of the Taliban taking control of the capital, Kabul, and the Afghans fleeing en masse towards the airport, spread like wildfire on social media. The Arab street was divided between congratulators and opponents, with many expressing their solidarity with the Afghans, while others praised the Taliban's victory and described it as the "victory of Muslims over the West", explaining that the Taliban is not like the so-called "Islamic State" organization that abused Islam with its brutal practices.

So, what are the points of convergence and differences between them, and does one pose a threat to the other?

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Both the Taliban movement and the so-called Islamic State were born from the womb of the Salafi-jihadi organizations that preceded it.

The Taliban arose in the early nineties, and its star emerged in 1994, in northern Pakistan, following the withdrawal of the former Soviet Union's forces from Afghanistan.

Although Pakistan has denied its involvement in the founding of the Taliban, it is widely believed that the movement first appeared in conservative religious institutes in Pakistan, which are mostly funded from unauthorized external sources.

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When the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s and until 2001, only three countries recognized it: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Its leadership was assumed by Mullah Omar, and was succeeded by Mullah Mansour, who was killed in an American raid in 2016, to be replaced by his deputy, Mawlawi Hebatullah Akhundzadeh, who is also known as a fanatic.

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As for the "Islamic State" organization, some experts, according to a study by the Carnegie Endowment for Middle East Affairs, attribute the reason for its rise to several reasons, including "the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran's support for Shiite militias in the region, and the presence of political Islam, which is the incubator of ISIS fanaticism." Islamic ".

The Syrian civil war provided a fertile environment for the organization's growth and expansion in the region at a rapid pace.

In general, both the Islamic State and the Taliban see themselves as representatives of the true Islam that was followed by the early Muslims, the "ancestors", and they adopt extremist ideas that differ from the mainstream of Islam.

In justifying their violent practices, the two depend on the references and books of extremist clerics such as Ibn Taymiyyah, by taking into account the stories and hadiths attributed to the beginning of Islamic history.

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The policy of intimidation and rejection of Western culture

Both groups rely on violence and brutal methods of management, because, in their view, the end justifies the means and war is a ruse.

And they believe that they are absolutely right, and that they apply what was stated in the "Book of God and the Sunnah of His Messenger", and therefore, any opposition to them is tantamount to opposing God and His Messenger. On this basis, they give themselves the right to use all methods to repress any person, individual or group contrary to their opinion, such as public executions of those convicted of murder, adulterers, amputation of the hands of those found guilty of theft, stoning and other methods.

They also harbor hostility to Western democratic concepts, such as equality between men and women, pluralism, human rights, freedom of expression and other modern concepts, and they follow strict practices to nip any opposition or rebellion against them in the bud.

The two believe that they are fighting the camp of the infidels and hypocrites, and rely in their practices on strict religious books and references.

Despite the similarities between the Taliban and the Islamic State, there are notable differences.

Social life and women

Both see the role of women as being limited to procreation, childcare and household chores. As for the women, they are forced to wear the hijab and the niqab, and for the men, they are required to grow a beard.

The two also ban watching entertainment TV shows, listening to music and going to the cinema.

The "Islamic State" and the Taliban obliged shop owners not to display women's fashion, and to cover the faces of display dolls in storefronts. The Taliban banned girls from going to school when they reached the age of ten.

However, in contrast to the Taliban's policy towards women, the Islamic State knew how to better exploit women and their capabilities in the service of the organization. They were trained (particularly those who joined it from Europe) in how to spread propaganda and recruit girls online, and were allowed to work as doctors, nurses, teachers and staff, some of whom played a role in monitoring and reporting other, less observant women in their homes and among the women's community, and even set up a women's police battalion It bore the name "Al-Khansa Brigade", after the organization extended its control in record time over the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

Do they have a common enemy?

No, ISIS is expansionist and cross-border, while the Taliban is a regional movement that does not have any activities outside the area of ​​presence of the Pashtuns who make up the majority of the movement's members.

The Islamic State believes that the worst enemies of Islam are the internal enemies before the outside. They see that they can lure the external (far) enemy into the region by striking the internal enemies (the governments in Muslim countries that have relations with the West, and other sects of Islam).

This is what actually happened in Syria and Iraq, where the organization dragged dozens of European countries into the war there.

The organization views the whole world as an enemy, unless "it does not believe and rules in the Book of God and the Sunnah of His Messenger", as the "good ancestors" did as they claimed.

The United States and other European countries have classified ISIS as a terrorist group, while the Taliban is not classified as a terrorist movement.

The movement focuses on specific regions and geography, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan. It has a tribal orientation since its inception.

But ISIS, unlike the Taliban, sought from the beginning to attract different races and nationalities from all over the world, and appointed them leaders and officers in its ranks, such as Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Chechens, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Uyghurs and others.

The organization has often criticized, through the statements of its leaders, al-Qaeda for their commitment to tribalism, while they boasted of their "cross-border" ideology and approach, as they described it.

Schools and Education

The Taliban were very hostile to modern education during their rule. They abolished schools completely at times, and in the event of strong opposition from the population, they allowed schools but reduced scientific subjects such as physics, chemistry and natural sciences, and instead entered religious subjects such as jurisprudence, hadiths, etc. .

As for the Islamic State, it did not oppose or abolish modern education. Rather, it abolished some subjects that did not fit their ideas, such as music, and kept the necessary subjects such as science, language, etc., and added more religious subjects to the educational curricula.

Where do they receive support from?

There is no regional or international force that officially and publicly supports ISIS, and the issue of those supporting the organization is complex and thorny. They also seized a lot of US and European military equipment during their control of several areas in Iraq and their oil trade when they took control of wells in Syria and Iraq.

As for the Taliban, apart from the cultivation of poppy, which has spread in most of the provinces of Afghanistan, it has clear links with Pakistan from the beginning and its relationship with it has never changed, as stated in the speeches of former Pakistani Interior Minister Nasirullah Babar, former Pakistani intelligence chief Asad Durrani and Pervez Musharraf, the former president of the state.

Is the Islamic State a threat to the Taliban?

Although the group has collapsed in Iraq and Syria, it remains resilient in the “Khorasan Province” of Afghanistan, which was founded by a group of militants and defectors from the Pakistani Taliban (also known as the Punjab Taliban) and the Afghan Taliban in 2015.

According to their literature, "Khorasan Province" includes Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, but the organization is still known as "ISIS" in Afghanistan.

Many Salafis who differed with Taliban leaders joined this organization, accusing the latter of being an agent of the Pakistani intelligence, and the organization aims to fight all armed movements in the "Khorasan Province" such as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, along with the region's governments. The organization has adopted several military operations in Afghanistan, killing hundreds so far.

And the "Khorasan Province" continues to threaten its rival, the Taliban, and other armed groups in the region to do more. The urgent question remains: Will the resurgence of the organization intensify after the arena has emptied of foreign presence and heavy weapons and a bloody conflict erupts between the two parties on the Afghan arena, or will they coexist with each other?